The Tourist

The hallway was silent save for the faint hum of climate control, the soft glow of bioluminescent strips tracing the walls like veins of light. 

Lena padded down the corridor barefoot, her boots left somewhere by the door. She didn't care. She hesitated outside Elise’s room, knuckles hovering near the door’s seamless panel.

The NY State artist suites were near-futuristic perfection—inhumanly perfect. Rooms that monitored body temperature, adjusted lighting to your moods, and diffused oils that promised relaxation, creativity, and focus in alternation. It was like being swaddled by a too-attentive mother who wouldn’t stop checking your pulse. 

Lena pressed her knuckles to the door, soft enough not to startle. “Elise? You awake?”

A beat. Elise’s voice, muffled but clear, rang out. “Yeah. Come in.”

The door slid open without so much as a hiss. Elise was sitting on the edge of her bed—a real bed, double-sized, nestled into the futuristic platform. But unlike Lena’s room, Elise had dimmed the AI projections and soft-glow panels. 

The massive wall screen was blank, the tech stifled, dark. The only light came from a single lamp by her bedside, warm and yellow, spilling over her face and knees like an old painting.

Lena stepped in, the temperature subtly adjusting to her presence. Elise glanced up, her face shadowed, her arms loosely draped around her knees.

“Everything okay?” Lena asked, her voice quieter than she’d intended.

“Yeah,” Elise said, but the word landed flat. “You don’t have to check on me.”

Lena tilted her head, watching her. “I wanted to.”

Elise looked away, picking at the fraying edge of her jeans. The silence stretched, soft and heavy, until Elise exhaled and gestured loosely to the room.

“This place… It’s too much,” she muttered. “I don’t get how you live in it. It’s like the walls are listening to me.”

“They probably are,” Lena replied, folding herself to sit cross-legged on the bed beside her. “But they’re polite enough not to judge.”

Elise snorted, but it wasn’t quite a laugh. “I just—I don’t know. I don’t need any of this. At home, I’ve got a bed. Double. Comfy. The thermostat works when it feels like it. And that’s enough for me.” She gestured again, sharper this time. “This is too sleek. It's creepy.”

"Ain't it also a lighthouse...?"

"Shush, you."

“Well, this is NY State luxury. Custom-built so you can be your most authentic, optimized self.”

“Yeah, well, they can keep it,” Elise muttered. "People are so corny, here. They don't need to be doing all this..."

"Art deco steampunk fusion?"

"I hate humans who invent words that don't make any sense."

Lena smiled faintly, though the expression didn’t hold. She studied Elise for a moment—the tightness in her shoulders, the slight crease between her brows. “You’re not still thinking about earlier, are you?”

Elise didn’t answer right away. Then: “Thank God for Maya.”

Lena looked at her, waiting.

Elise’s voice wavered, though her tone stayed matter-of-fact. “They’re here for her. Not us. For Popo. And Kiko. We’re just… decoration. The bow on top.”

Lena’s gaze softened. “It’s not that, Elise.”

“It is that. But that’s fine. Got to stay humble, right? We will get our chance.”

“No.” Lena shook her head, leaning forward. “If we rebuff them—if we act like we’re above it—they’ll cook us alive. But that’s fine. We can work with it.”

Elise looked up at her then, eyes sharp and searching. “Can we?”

“Yes.”

“And what about the show?” Elise pressed. “We need to make adjustments, Lena. To how we sound, how we look. Kiko practised that move a hundred times. She worked harder on that sequence than anyone, and no one noticed.”

Lena paused, watching the frustration bleed through Elise’s voice.

“We’ll fix it,” Lena said quietly. “Bring Kiko’s work forward. Make sure it’s seen.”

Elise blinked, as if she hadn’t expected agreement. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.” Lena leaned back, a slight smirk tugging at her mouth. “I’m not a tyrant, you know.”

Elise’s lips twitched into the smallest of smiles, though she hid it quickly. “Could’ve fooled me.”

They sat in the half-light for a moment longer, the suite’s hum barely noticeable beneath the quiet.

“You’ll get used to it,” Lena said finally, nodding to the room.

“I won’t,” Elise replied, lying back against the bed with a dramatic sigh. The mattress adjusted instantly, cradling her, and she groaned. “I hate this thing.”

Lena snorted, lying down beside her. “It hates you too.”

For a while, neither of them spoke. The glow of the lamp flickered against the wall like the last light of a simpler time. Outside, the high-tech world kept spinning, but here—in this strange, quiet room—it felt very far away.

“Thank you,” Elise murmured eventually, her voice soft.

Lena glanced at her, surprised. “For what?”

“For checking in on me.”

HOTWIRED!HOTWIRED!HOTWIRED!HOTWIRED!HOTWIRED!HOTWIRED!HOTWIRED!HOTWIRED!

The suite hummed faintly with its usual efficiency—lights tuned to a warm, low glow, the walls projecting the vague impression of a serene forest. It was a futile attempt at calm, Lena thought, but it was pretty to look at, at least. She sat sprawled on the edge of the too-perfect bed, elbows on her knees, her thumb idly scrolling through the screen embedded into her palm.

Maya: “You good? Looked rough after rehearsal. Just checking.”

Lena sighed, letting the message linger. It was sweet—Maya was sweet—but Lena didn’t want to reply yet. She tilted her head back until her gaze landed on Caden, standing just a few feet away, uncomfortably still as always. His presence was too solid for this room, too real against its clean edges and curated perfection.

“You’re tired,” he said plainly.

“I’m fine.”

“I can disprove that.”

Lena shot him a look, sharp and exasperated. “You’re starting to sound like one of those old wellness apps. Next you are going to get me to meditate.”

His gaze didn’t waver. “Your body will fight back against those regulators, Lena. And might I add, you are veering into illegal territory.”

There it was. The warning tone.

“Oh, come on.” Lena groaned, slumping back against the bed so the mattress adjusted instantly, cradling her like some overbearing aunt. “It’s not illegal. Just… frowned upon.”

“Tampering with bio-regulators is not just frowned upon,” Caden said, crossing his arms—something he’d picked up from her, she realized with annoyance. 

“Monitored. Regulated. Judged. Who cares? It’s a little boost. Everyone does it.”

“You are not ‘everyone.’”

“And you are not my dad.”

“I’m not trying to be,” Caden said, the edge softening from his voice just slightly. “Regulators can only suppress so much fatigue before your body takes over. It’s not a question of ‘if,’ Lena.”

Lena stared at the ceiling again, refusing to look at him. The glowing panels seemed so far away now—almost like stars, but artificial, unreachable. It was easier to argue with Caden when she wasn’t meeting his eyes.

“I don’t have time to be tired,” she muttered.

Caden stepped closer, his footsteps noiseless against the floor. “You’ve been reading messages from Maya all night. I know what you’re thinking.”

“Oh, do you?”

“Yes. You think that if you stop—if you so much as slow down—you’ll fall behind. That you’ll matter less. That’s not true, Lena.”

Lena sat up, her movements sharp, and for a moment, she almost looked like she might argue. But the words stuck. She rubbed the back of her neck, her skin buzzing faintly beneath her fingertips.

“What am I supposed to do, Caden?” she said quietly. “Say no to one of the most important tours of our lives because my bones ache?”

“Yes.”

Lena blinked, startled. “What?”

“Yes,” he repeated simply. “You’re supposed to rest. Adjust. Prioritize yourself before you collapse in front of tens of thousands of people. That doesn’t make you weak. Give priority to the other girls instead, for some tour dates. This is what I project.”

“Wow, from just one concert, huh? Jesus, paying money to go see Astra and you see some one-half of the act perform upstage instead. Imagine commuting down from Mars for that,” she muttered, dragging a hand through her hair, “I need to support them, Caden. I will get hate, but they will get just as much besides. Maybe more! Elise is getting pummeled for no reason! They got their whole lives ahead of them. I hate it when you shovel poo just for others to throw it back at you. Don’t want that happening to them.”

Lena looked down at her hands.

Caden regarded her carefully, and then he did something that startled her: he knelt down. It was an oddly human gesture, putting them at eye level, his frame carefully aligned to seem less imposing.

“Lena,” he said softly, “you are already feeling it. You’re just refusing to acknowledge it. That’s not strength. It’s surrendering to the wrong fight.”

Lena swallowed, her throat tight. She couldn’t meet his eyes—those sharp, unreadable eyes that saw too much of her.

“I’ll make adjustments,” she said, more to herself than to him.

Caden didn’t reply, but he didn’t need to. He straightened, as silently as he’d knelt, and resumed his place near the edge of the room. Watching. Waiting. A presence so steady that, for the first time in days, Lena felt her breath steady too.

She closed her eyes, and the room’s hum softened to a murmur.

"Good night, Lena."

"...'Night."